New Riverina renal plan to focus on prevention

There is hope the Murrumbidgee Local Health District's inaugural renal services plan will help reduce the number of local patients needing dialysis.

Renal Clinical Nurse Consultant Patrina Byng says until now there has only been a New South Wales wide plan for renal services with a strong focus on metropolitan areas.

She says needs are much different in the Murrumbidgee region, where kidney disease is growing at much higher rate than the nine per cent state average.

Ms Byng says a draft plan will be released by September with a final document adopted by the end of the year

"Instead of just focusing on the therapies, we're going to look at the whole spectrum," she said.

"We're going to look significantly at prevention and we can do a lot of intervention to slow down or significantly halt their progression in their renal disease, so they won't ever get to needing dialysis like therapies."

Community consultations have already been held in Deniliquin and Griffith, and there will be sessions in Tumut, Narrandera, Wagga and Young over the next fortnight.

The Riverina's renal patients are being warned the new health plan won't necessarily mean more dialysis facilities.

Ms Byng says prevention will be a focus for the plan, rather than building more dialysis facilities.

"We have to be very wise in where we put out resources," she said.

"It takes about two years to effectively have an independently functioning renal nurse.

"We have to be very careful we have adequate medical back up.

"And we have to be wise with the use of our financial resources.

"We don't want to end up having units in three or four years, that are sitting there with staff and no patients."